State Senate: Republican majority
State House: Republican majority
Governor: Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R)
Attorney General: Tim Griffin (R)
Summary:
With total Republican control of government, Arkansas has passed new laws to prohibit requiring employees of public schools and state-sponsored institutions of higher education to use a person’s preferred pronoun, name, or title without parental consent.
Additionally, the state now requires that institutions of higher education cannot limit or restrict the expression of a member of the campus community in a campus forum based on the viewpoint of the expression or due to reactions or opposition from listeners or observers of the expression.
Arkansas also passed a landmark law requiring social media companies to use age verification and require parental consent for minors to create and use accounts, but implementation of that law is currently on hold after a district court injunction.
Key Policymakers:
- Sen. Tyler Dees [R], Sen. Jim Dotson [R] and Sen. Jim Petty [R],
- Rep. Stephen Meeks [R,] Rep. Jon Eubanks [R], and Rep. Rick Beck [R]
- Attorney General Tim Griffin
Legislative Activity:
SB 396 (Signed into Law): The Social Media Safety Act. Requires age verification and parental consent for minors to use social media. Introduced by Sen. Tyler Dees [R], Rep. Jon Eubanks [R], and Sen. Jim Petty [R]. Passed with large bipartisan majorities in both chambers and signed into law on April 7, 2023. Following a legal challenge, implementation of the law was blocked by district court.
HB 1647 (2021): The Arkansas Unfair Social Media Censorship Act. An act to promote Arkansas voices, to combat cancel culture and protect freedom of speech, and to clarify that certain acts of online censorship are deceptive trade practices. The bill would have restricted the ability of large social media companies to censor users’ content based on legal content. It was introduced in March 2021 by Rep. Brian Evans [R] and Sen. Ricky Hill [R], but was withdrawn a month later.
HB 1049: The Fair Access to Financial Services Act. The bill would have prevented Arkansas financial institutions from denying services except in cases of documented failure to meet qualitative, impartial, risk-based financial standards that were established in advance by the financial institution. It also bans the use of standards or guidelines based on non-financial, non-traditional, and subjective measures, including environmental, social, and governance criteria; diversity, equity, and inclusive policies; or political and ideological factors. Introduced by Rep. Stephen Meeks [R] in January 2023 but died in committee.
HB 1468 (Signed into Law): The Given Name Act. A bill to prohibit requiring employees of public schools and state-sponsored institutions of higher education to use a person’s preferred pronoun, name, or title without parental consent. Introduced in February 2023 by Rep. Wayne Long [R] and Sen. Mark Johnson [R]. Passed by both chambers along partisan lines and signed into law on April 11, 2023.
SB 125 (Signed into Law): A law stating that state-supported institutions of higher education shall not limit or restrict the expression of a member of the campus community in a campus forum based on the viewpoint of the expression or reaction or opposition from listeners to or observers of the expression. Introduced in January 2023 by Sen. Jim Dotson [R] and Rep. Rick Beck [R]. It passed both chambers nearly unanimously and was signed into law on April 11, 2023.
Legal Actions:
Arkansas Joins 21-State Coalition in Support of National TikTok Ban. On August 5, 2024, Attorney General Tim Griffin joined a 21-state coalition urging the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to uphold the TikTok divest-or-ban legislation that became law on April 24, 2024. This federal law bans TikTok in the United States unless ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company, sells its stake in the platform. In response, ByteDance and TikTok filed a lawsuit against the federal government. The attorneys general are asking the court to deny TikTok’s petition, asserting that Congress has the power to act in this matter of national security and foreign affairs. Their letter claims that “TikTok poses significant threats to both national security and consumers’ privacy by indiscriminately collecting user data that could be accessed by the Chinese Communist Party, a longstanding adversary of the United States. Additionally, TikTok’s operations infringe upon Americans’ right to privacy and promote harmful content to minors. Allowing TikTok to operate in the United States without severing its ties to the Chinese Communist Party exposes Americans to the risk of the CCP accessing and exploiting their data.”
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen co-led this amicus brief with Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and were joined by the AGs of: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Utah.
Arkansas Join 17-State Letter Urging Google Not To Censor Crisis Pregnancy Centers From Search Results. On July 21, 2022, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron led a multistate letter to Google expressing concerns about recent political pressure encouraging Google to discriminate against crisis pregnancy centers in search results, online advertising, and other products like Google Maps. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has advocated for the shutting down of crisis pregnancy centers, and Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Congresswoman Slotkin (D-MI), joined by 19 of their Democrat colleagues, sent Google their own respective letter, urging them to discriminate against these private charities by removing them from search results. Fifteen other Republican attorneys general signed onto AG Miyares and AG Cameron’s letter, promising to investigate potential violations of antitrust laws and religious discrimination, should Google fall to this political pressure and attack free speech.
AGs Miyares and Cameron were joined by the Attorneys General of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.
Arkansas Joins 20-State Letter to Biden Administration Opposing Disinformation Board. On May 5, 2022, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares submitted a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, joined by 19 other Republican attorneys general, opposing the Biden Administration’s attack on the First Amendment, saying that the creation of a “Disinformation Governance Board” violates the constitutional freedoms that state attorneys general are responsible for defending. The letter argues that this government watchdog agency would abridge a citizen’s right to express their opinions and disagree with the government, furthering self-censorship rather than protecting freedom of speech. The board’s creation is also an example of federal overreach. There is no statutory authority to support its inception – particularly as the public’s elected representatives debate the issue of disinformation in Congress.
The letter states that “the Disinformation Governance Board, by its very existence, and almost certainly by design, threatens to “enforce silence” when Americans wish to express views disfavored by the Administration. It is therefore already chilling free speech and impeding the political process in Virginia and every other state. This is unconstitutional, illegal, and un-American. Unless you turn back now and disband this Orwellian Disinformation Governance Board immediately, the undersigned will have no choice but to consider judicial remedies to protect the rights of their citizens.”
Attorneys General from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia joined Attorney General Miyares’ letter.
Netchoice v Griffin. Legal challenge to SB 396. The law intended to protect children from harmful online content has been criticized for infringing on free speech and creating significant cybersecurity risks by mandating the collection of personal data. NetChoice, an industry association representing major tech companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon, filed a lawsuit arguing that SB 396 violates the First Amendment, is unconstitutionally vague, and conflicts with federal regulations like the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The lawsuit also contends that the law infringes on the Commerce Clause by attempting to regulate activities beyond Arkansas’s borders. They also claim it poses significant risks to user privacy by mandating the sharing of sensitive personal information with unknown third-party verifiers, potentially making users’ data more vulnerable to breaches.
A district court judge issued a preliminary injunction, ruling that the law likely violated the First Amendment by imposing unreasonable requirements on social media platforms to collect sensitive information from users. The court found that the law did not effectively address the harms it purported to mitigate and instead created broader issues related to privacy and free speech. The judge emphasized that targeting specific content, rather than imposing blanket age-verification requirements, would be a more appropriate approach to protecting minors online. Attorney General Griffin has appealed the decision.
